Welcome to The Black Letters, a blog celebrating all aspects of bibliophilia, with a slant towards speculative fiction, and written jointly by Emera and Kakaner. We hope that you will enjoy the reviews, thoughts, and images that we share here. Updates every Wednesday.

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New X-Men: Hellions (2005) E

Date read: 12.23.07Read from: Digital collectionReviewer: Emera

A four-issue side-series off of the most recent New X-Men storyline, featuring, obviously, the current crop of Hellions, Emma Frost’s protégés and the New X-Men’s bestest rivals within the Xavier Institute. Written by Nunzio deFilippis and Christina Weir, pencils by Clayton Henry.

At the end of the school year (and prior to the events of M-Day), Julian/Hellion brings his team members back to California with him to hang out at his family’s mansion. Unfortunately, after a typical Hellion-style scuffle at the airport, his parents cut him out of the family fortune. Spiteful and disgruntled, Julian digs deeper into his parents’ background, and ends up making a deal with the same figure who got his parents rich – the Kingmaker, who proceeds to grant the dearest wish of each of the Hellions. Sooraya/Dust is reunited with her mother at an Afghan refugee camp, Cessily/Mercury finds herself welcomed home again by suddenly loving parents,Santo/Rockslide becomes a wrestling star (dream big, boy), and so on. But after the trial period is up, The Kingmaker returns to extract payment…

This was a REALLY fun read, and made me realize how boring by comparison pretty much the entirety of the New Mutants series was, revolving as it did around petty disputes and page after page of overwritten adolescent moping. Not that Hellions was that much deeper or more novel, but let’s face it, rebellious teams are pretty much always more fun (even if their leader is a twit), and being limited in length, the series packed a lot more interest into a lot fewer pages. The writing was tight and featured equal helpings of action and character exposition; I’ve always been fond of Cessily and Sooraya in particular, so it was fun and occasionally genuinely affecting to see a bit into their pasts and family lives. Coloring was too shiny for my tastes, but the pencils and inks were strong and consistent. All in all, something that might actually have re-read value for me, unlike the rest of the pre-M-Day New Mutants/New X-Men: Academy X storyline. (No, I don’t know why I kept reading it, either. Of course as soon as most of the irritating characters had been dispensed with and Skottie Young started doing the art and I was getting genuinely interested in the series, it was cancelled.)

6 thoughts on “New X-Men: Hellions (2005) E”

My problem with most X-men stories is that I get bored and COMPLETELY lost among sooo many characters who end up sounding the same. It’s why I keep trying to stick to series with the core X-men. Is this of the borrowable?

Yeah, I’d be happy to lend! I think it stands alone well, and is entertaining enough to be worth the read.

sooo many characters who end up sounding the same
Always a massive problem for all the X-titles, especially with all the shifting team compositions and the preponderance of unimaginative writing. The deFilippis/Weir New Mutants run is pretty disgustingly formulaic (again, don’t know why I read it for so long), with every group having its perfect little spread of Ethnic Diversity and various personal problems. It’s like the Babysitters’ Club, but with mutants. Also, I consider deFilippis/Weir responsible for inventing one of the most useless and absurdly baroque mutant powers of all time. (He’s in the Hellions, so you’ll see what I mean.)

YEP. Poor Tag, not only does he get stuck with a power that actually requires thoughtful application, he gets depowered and bombed after having maybe two lines of dialogue and three action scenes.

And yes, good call, I meant GMorrison’s New X-Men run. *facepalm* Have you read the original New Mutants? I like Rahne, Karma, Leech, and Magma, among others of their roster, so I might be interested in following up on that if it’s worth the time…

you have Magneto, the most powerful mutant, trying to babysit the next class of mutants, one of which Magik, keeps thumbing her nose at his detentions because she can teleport herself and her friends away.